‘I’m going to be part of this,’ was the general attitude. ‘We’re going over to take him out. We’re saving lives here.’ Nobody wanted to be left behind. Nobody wanted to miss the action. With ten of them on board, the driver called a halt.
The boat was lifted from the rock it had been resting on. It suddenly sank so far down that the sides were just a hand’s breadth above the water.
‘Hit the gas, top speed!’ called Håvard Gåsbakk as the boat puttered slowly along. ‘Hit the gas!’ he shouted again to the boat driver.
‘I’m at full acceleration,’ answered the driver. ‘It doesn’t go any faster.’
After a few hundred metres the engine started to sputter, before giving up completely. There they all sat, ten heavyweights armed to the teeth, in a rubber dinghy bobbing on the waves. Some of them started loosening their suits. If the boat sank, they would sink with it, forced down by the weight of their gear. They cursed. They cackled. They swore.
They heard the salvoes from the island.
A holidaymaker came to their rescue. He slowed down so the wash from his boat would not swamp the red rubber dinghy. It was lying so low in the water that any sudden manoeuvre could swamp it.
The heavily armed special forces officers were standing in water up to their knees and the fuel tank and fuel hose were floating around with the paddles and other equipment. The first thing to be heaved over into the camper’s boat was a shield. Then the officers moved over into the boat one by one, while the boat owner transferred to the red rubber dinghy. Once in it, he had no option but to take to the oars.
One of the policemen raised a hand in the air and cried, ‘Many thanks, comrade!’ Then they headed for Utøya.
But again they made slow progress, because this boat, too, was overloaded.
Another craft came alongside, and four men jumped over into it.
Finally they picked up speed. Both boats accelerated. But all the transfers had wasted precious time.
* * *
Anders Behring Breivik was surprised that Delta had not turned up. He saw a helicopter circling overhead and thought it must be the police. He was amazed at how low it came, because he knew the helicopter had a thermal-imaging camera that could detect signs of life from a distance, even through vegetation. The helicopter was in a two-hundred-metre line of fire. He could have brought it down with ten shots, but that would mean revealing his location, if they had not already seen him. Why didn’t they shoot him? Perhaps the helicopter was just reporting back to Delta on where to deploy when it reached the island.
A thought occurred to him. Did he in fact want to survive this? He thought of all the demonisation that was to come. He had everything he needed to kill himself, and if he was going to do it, he should do it now.
He weighed up his life for a moment.
He came down on the side of living.
He had to keep to the plan. Phase one was the manifesto, phase two was the bomb and Utøya, phase three was the trial.
All at once he felt a huge urge to survive. He thought about ways of surrendering, to ensure he would be able to continue to phase three. He feared it would be difficult to capitulate. Delta would execute him at the first opportunity.
He had no armour and there was not much ammunition left now. Seeing another abandoned mobile phone, he decided to ring the police again. It was 18.26. He had been on the island for over an hour. This time he got through quickly. But not to where he wanted. An error at a base station meant that all calls from NetCom accounts were transferred to Søndre Buskerud police district.
‘Police emergency line.’
‘Good afternoon, my name is Anders Behring Breivik.’
‘Yes, hello.’
‘I am Commander of the Norwegian resistance movement.’
‘Yes, hello.’
‘Can you put me through to the Delta operations manager?’
‘Yes … where do you come in, and what’s it about?’
‘I’m on Utøya.’
‘You’re on Utøya, yes.’
‘I have completed my operation, so I want to … give myself up.’
‘You want to give yourself up, yes.’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Anders Behring Breivik.’
‘And you were a commander of…?’
‘Knights Templar Europe, the organisation is called, but we are organised in … the anti-communist resistance movement against the Islamisation of Europe and Norway.’
‘Yes.’
‘We have just carried out an operation on behalf of the Knights Templar.’
‘Yes…’
‘Europe and Norway.’
‘Yes…’
‘And in view of the fact that the operation is complete, then … it’s acceptable to surrender to Delta.’
‘You want to surrender to Delta?’
‘Can you … can you put me through to the chief of operations at Delta?’
‘Well, the thing is, you’re talking to someone with, er, in a way, superior authority.’
‘Okay, just find out what you need to and then call me on this phone here, all right?’
‘Hmm, but what telephone number?’
‘Brilliant, bye.’
‘I haven’t got that telephone number. Hello?’
Once more Breivik had called from a mobile without a working SIM card, one from which you could only make emergency calls. The operator therefore could not see the telephone number on the screen.
The Commander of the anti-communist resistance movement against the Islamisation of Europe and Norway decided to carry on until he was neutralised.
He went south. He followed the pebbles on the beach.
* * *
The fastest boat reached the island at 18.27. Four men from the emergency response unit were dropped off at the landing stage. Some AUF members came running up and pointed north, to Bolsjevika and Stoltenberget.
‘He’s there! He’s there!’
That was the last place where Breivik had shot anyone. But since then he had come past the landing stage, via his base at the back of the main building, where he had rung 112, and then gone south.
Delta moved north while Breivik headed for the southern tip of the island.
As he approached the southern tip he saw a bunch of people partly hidden by bushes and undergrowth. They did not see him coming. He realised he had been here before. There were lots of dead and wounded bodies strewn on the ground. Some people were standing in the water, a little way out. The terrain was flat here, with no steep places or sheer cliffs; the island sloped gradually into the water.
A couple of girls noticed the uniformed man approaching.
‘Oh, police! Police! Help us, help us!’
He walked calmly towards them.
‘Which of you need help?’ he asked. He went right up to them. Then he opened fire.
High above, it was all being filmed. The helicopter above the island did not belong to the police, as the killer had thought. It had been chartered by NRK, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. The camera team had been filming above the government quarter when the desk editor told them to head to Utøya.
It was too far down for the cameraman to make out through his lens what he was filming. It was only later, when he saw the footage, that he realised he had been filming a massacre.
Breivik stood by the water and saw several people swimming out. A yellow speedboat came towards him. It stopped to pick up some of the swimmers. He fired a few shots, causing the boat to make a rapid turn and retreat over the fjord at speed, away from him, away from the island, away from the youngsters in the water.
Meanwhile, the boat containing Håvard Gåsbakk and five other officers was just putting in to the island. The six on board had heard the shots and seen the bullets hailing down into the water, so they knew which direction they would have to take.
One man stayed on the spot to secure the ferry landing stage, the others move
d south in a five-man formation. First the man with the shield, then the others. They forced their way through bushes and scrub to get down to the water, but the undergrowth was so thick that they had to turn inland, up a little path through the woods, and then back down to where the shots were coming from.
Meanwhile, on the southern tip of the island a girl was hit twice in the head and once in the chest as the armed men were walking along the path. Another kid got a bullet through the neck while the men were jogging across open ground. A third, through her head while they were changing shield carrier. A fourth was shot twice in the back as the five men drew nearer. The fifth, a boy, was shot three times, first in the back to bring him down, then through the head and neck, and the men were still not there.
They were running along the gravel path.
We’ll come under fire now. We’ll be shot at, thought Gåsbakk. This is going to be a firefight. The father of two had still not seen any of the dead bodies on the island. The men’s route was outside Breivik’s sphere of operations. The murderer had avoided that stretch because it was in full view of the mainland and there was a risk of being shot.
I’d be crazy to raise my visor, thought Gåsbakk, but lifted it all the same. It was so steamed up in the damp weather that it was impossible to see clearly through it. He heard the rapid succession of shots, a heavy weapon in action.
The gloves are off for this one, he thought, looking down at his MP5 machine pistol, which was nothing compared with the weapon he could hear, something with much more power and range. He felt at a distinct disadvantage.
I should have given Eilif that cuddle, he thought. This could be my last run.
* * *
Breivik stood over the people he had killed. Beside him was a boy who looked ‘too fucking young’.
‘You killed my dad! You killed my dad!’ cried the boy. ‘You’ve got to stop shooting now. You’ve done enough killing! Leave us alone.’
Breivik looked down at him, and thought he looked awfully small for a teenager. Perhaps this one was not an indoctrinated cultural Marxist yet.
‘It’s going to be all right, it’s going to be fine,’ he told the small boy.
The boy did not move, but shouted: ‘He let me live! He spared me!’
Breivik turned to go up to his base for more ammunition.
The five men came to the end of the path and swapped shield carrier again. They stood quietly. He must be very close by. They squatted down and secured their position. Listened. It was a while since they had heard a shot. There were no sounds to go on now. One of the Delta men started calling out.
‘Shut up!’ said Gåsbakk. It was unwise to call out until they knew where he was. ‘Keep listening!’
They advanced again. After a hundred metres they came to a low, red building, the schoolhouse. They made for the south-west corner, keeping potential firing zones covered as they went.
All was quiet.
They saw a movement in the undergrowth, fifty metres away. Something reflective gave a glint. They lost sight of the figure. They crossed Lovers’ Path. They advanced through the thicket from two directions. Then a man in police uniform was standing there ahead of them.
‘Delta, Delta,’ they shouted.
* * *
Now they’ll shoot me, thought Breivik. But at the same time, they seemed a bit bewildered. They had probably expected a dark-skinned man, he thought.
‘Armed police! Stand still! Hands up!’ one of them shouted.
Breivik set down his rifle, propping it against a tree.
Then he turned and went towards the policemen, keeping both hands at his sides. He had earplugs in his ears, with a lead that went inside his vest and down his body.
‘Lie down!’ shouted one.
‘Down on your knees!’
Several men were pointing their guns at him, with their fingers on the trigger.
‘If you come any closer, we’ll shoot!’
The Delta officers had noticed his bulging vest. Could it be a bomb belt? The leads of his iPod were hanging out. Would he finish them all? The men were preparing to shoot him.
‘It’s not a bomb belt! It’s an equipment belt with ammunition!’ shouted a Delta man from the flank.
‘Lie down,’ shouted one.
‘On your knees!’ roared another.
‘Make up your minds, kneeling or lying?’ responded Breivik.
‘Down!’
He flopped down, first onto his knees and then his stomach.
Håvard Gåsbakk jumped straight on him, forced his hands round behind his back and put on the handcuffs. Another officer bound his legs with plastic strip cuffs.
From down there, with his body pressed to the ground, Breivik turned his head and looked up at Gåsbakk, who was now sitting astride his back.
‘It’s not you lot I’m after. I see you as my brothers. It’s not you I’ve got to take out.’
‘Have you got ID?’
‘In my right pocket.’
A man took out his card and read his name and personal identification number over the radio.
‘I’m not against you,’ Breivik went on. ‘This is politically motivated. The country is being invaded by foreigners, this is a coup d’état, this is the start of hell. It’s going to get worse: the third cell has still not been activated.’
Then Gåsbakk noticed two dead bodies on the ground. The first two he had seen. It was Johannes and Gizem, who had been shot by Breivik in the woods.
‘The Glock’s in the holster,’ said Breivik.
‘I know,’ Gåsbakk replied.
One officer took the pistol from his thigh. Another stood there throughout with his weapon raised, pointing at Breivik.
Gåsbakk looked Breivik in the eyes.
‘For the sake of your conscience, answer now: are there any more of you? Where are they?’
Breivik looked up at him.
‘There is only me,’ he said. ‘There is only me.’
There. Is. Only. Me.
When It’s All Over
The living room in Heiaveien was filling up.
As the evening went on, the reports said seven had been killed. A bit later it was ten.
Gunnar couldn’t get through on any of the telephone numbers going across the screen, and finally rang their local district sheriff. Maybe he had acquaintances in Buskerud police district.
Yes, in fact he did.
They sat there, transfixed by the pictures on the screen. They saw young people swimming in dark water. White bodies far below, filmed from the air. They were going fast, with powerful, dogged strokes. Some were swimming in groups. Others were on their own. They were on a steady course towards the mainland. They were all engaged in the same thing: getting away from the island.
The old sheriff rang Gunnar back. ‘It’s serious,’ he said. But he had nothing more to tell them.
The sheriff had been putting things straight in the Salangen community for forty years, handing out speeding fines and clamping down on illegal fishing, enforcing the snowmobile ban on the mountain, upholding law and order ever since local residents and asylum seekers had clashed at the end of the 1980s.
Now he knocked on the door. ‘I thought I ought to come,’ he said, standing on the doorstep. ‘In case there’s anything I can do to help.’
He was going to try ringing some other direct lines, not those listed on the screen, and he would be on hand if they needed him for anything.
But all the lines were jammed.
Astrid, the girl who had lived next door to them in Upper Salangen, turned up too. She was three years older than Simon and had played with him since he was four years old. Astrid was always the director when they performed their New Year revue and pretty much counted as an older sister. This Friday, she had just poured herself a glass of wine and sat down in front of the television when she saw the report of the shooting on Utøya. She got straight in the car and drove to Heiaveien.
Relatives arrived, neighbours, friends. Ever
yone at the birthday party the Sæbøs were meant to be attending came through the door. They could not have any kind of celebration until Simon had rung to say everything was all right.
A newsflash ran across the TV screen. Some of the surviving youngsters said that far more had died than had been officially reported. As many as thirty or forty, estimated one AUF member.
Hearts in the living room began to race and hammer.
Every second Simon did not ring was a second of pain. The minutes soon became unbearable.
Someone made coffee and put out the cups. The birthday guests had brought some of the cakes.
A heavy pall of anxiety hung over the light living room.
The sun’s rays were still shining through the big picture windows facing the fjord. The sun would not set that night, just move westwards along the horizon.
Tone had disappeared. It was a long time since anyone in the living room had seen her.
They found her in the little utility room that was mainly used for drying clothes. She was sitting there on the floor, rocking back and forth.
‘Not my Simon. Not my Simon. Not my Simon!’
Tone was heedless of anything beyond herself. The pain was just too greedy; fear had gripped her. She had lost the use of her arms and legs, and was nothing but a heap on the floor. She could only conjure up a single image. Simon, a happy Simon, when she gave him a hug and two kisses at the airport.
Gunnar was talking to the police. He looks just like normal, thought Astrid. His voice was clear, never hesitant. He held the phone to his ear and turned to the window.
Then she saw his back. His shirt was soaking wet, with huge sweat rings under the arms.
Gunnar was pacing to and fro, from the TV to the veranda for a smoke, and then back again. Tone couldn’t be left sitting there on the floor alone, some of them thought. They helped her up. She walked stiffly, moving mechanically with the support of two friends. She went out to Gunnar and asked for a cigarette. The only way to breathe was to smoke.
The fjord was twinkling in the evening light. The mountains behind were reflected on the water’s surface.
A car suddenly came into sight on the main road. ‘It’ll go off the road!’ said someone who was standing on the veranda with them.
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